The cost to manufacture an integrated circuit is characterized by a high initial cost of production. It is imperative that a design is thoroughly tested in order to mitigate errors in function or performance. Testing may occur via simulation of the waveforms generated by an integrated circuit using one of many simulation tools; however, such tests do not directly validate the operation of the storage elements or registers in an integrated circuit. More specifically, there is a need for a test that assesses the accuracy of data read from and written into registers. In addition, an assessment of its operational accuracy is beneficial. For example, a read only register should ignore write requests while normal read/write registers should accept both read and write requests.
A drawback to the prior art concerns the method used to validate the registers within a digital integrated circuit. A register's design may be tested by manual input of register parameters in the form of instructions or software code into a simulation tool. In addition, any diagnostic tests have to be performed manually. This often requires a significant knowledge of the language, register testing techniques, and register behavior characteristic of the simulation tool used. Hence, the process may be time consuming and difficult.
Furthermore, there lacks a method to efficiently modify register design parameters and perform subsequent tests as the electronic design changes. Hence, re-testing registers when a minor modification is made to the register design may be painstakingly tedious because it takes a significant amount of time to re-write new test instructions for the simulation tool.
Another disadvantage relates to efficiently documenting changes made to modifications or revisions in register design. When a change is made to a design, the corresponding documentation may not be readily updated.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.